


The Immeasurable In-Between

by lindmere



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Coma, F/M, M/M, Movie Spoilers, Plothole Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindmere/pseuds/lindmere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Khan, Jim is in a coma for 14 days, but something has to fill the spaces left behind for McCoy: memories, dreams, and a hope for something better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content includes references to the destruction of San Francisco and its impact, discussion of possible brain damage, strong language, and sex (McCoy with himself and with Carol, who I didn't put in the "relationships" tag because it's pretty much a one-off.)
> 
> Many thanks to [mga1999](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mga1999) for beta reading, encouragement, and all-around delightfulness.

**Day 1**

 

“Hold still, if you don’t want me to hurt--oh, fine, _don’t_ hold still.”

McCoy gropes Khan’s cubital fossa for a vein and jabs the needle in before being entirely sure it won’t roll. There’s no hiss of pain--the son of a bitch is wearing a crocodile’s smile--but McCoy enjoys it anyway.

“It is likely that Starfleet will bring charges against you for unauthorized human experimentation,” Spock says, trying to hold Khan’s arm steady while Scotty’s improvised rodnium shackles do the rest. “Possibly also for mistreatment of a political prisoner.”

McCoy tapes the needle down, steps backs, and watches the bag fill with superhuman blood. He’s trembling with anticipation like the vampire Jim’s always accused him of being, begrudging every second that he’s not able to pump that magic blood into Jim’s frozen veins.

“Yeah, well, right now I don’t give a good goddamn.”

“Nor do I,” Spock says, releasing Khan’s arm with a grunt. “I was merely making an observation.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Dr. McCoy.” Spock and McCoy are almost panting with exertion, but Khan’s voice is smooth as an oil slick. “My blood is capable of inducing rapid cell regeneration, but it is not an elixir of immortality. It cannot cure death.”

The word hangs breathless and cold in the air, seems to mingle with the hiss of the vacuum seal on the cryo tube when McCoy pops it open. There isn’t time to think or plan or ask permission or do anything but bring Jim’s temperature up high enough for his blood to liquify. Without a beating heart it won’t flow, so McCoy’s got an external defibrillator going. Meanwhile, the turbocentrifuge spins up, separating Khan’s nominally human red blood cells from the stuff that will save Jim.

“How do you know what quantity to use?” Spock asks. “Should you not conduct further experiments first?”

“That’s a definite _not_.” McCoy resists the urge to elbow Spock out of the way because he knows he’s worried; he’s seen the traces of tears on his cheeks. “You know this option will be gone once we hit spacedock. Besides, what am I going to do, make him worse?”

He hiccups a laugh and touches a finger to Jim’s cold cheek, trying not to think how peaceful he looks in death, dark lashes resting against his cheeks, droplets of newly melted ice in his hair. There’s nothing beautiful about death, nothing except the after-image of the _Enterprise_ ’s captain, too vibrant in life to fade quickly.

This needle he slides in carefully, into Jim’s carotid artery, the better to get the serum to his brain. Khan himself watches with detached curiosity.

“You should leave him in peace,” Khan says. “It’s a good death, to sacrifice one’s life for one’s comrades.”

“If that is the death you desire,” Spock says, “I am sure it can be arranged.”

McCoy has no attention to spare to tell them to shut up. The strange, thick elixir is creeping, slowly, into Jim and McCoy’s whole body is wound tight, waiting for a sign of life. He feels, in the seconds that pass, like Dr. Frankenstein, like a fool and a bad friend and the man in the old ghost story who wished his dead wife alive, and to his horror got exactly what he wanted. But he doesn’t stop.

A minute, more minutes pass in silence, McCoy conscious of his own living pulse, of the sinking feeling in his stomach and tightness in his heart, of the misery that won’t actually kill him no matter what he feels. Contrary to popular belief, familiarity with loss doesn’t make it an easier; there’s a moment of miserable cowardice when McCoy wishes he could slip into one of the stasis pods for a few weeks or months, long enough to avoid the funeral and the tears and the questions. And then, just as he’s ready to ask Spock to hand him a blanket to lay over the departed, one of Jim’s eyelids twitches, and the bio display lights up like a fireworks show.

“ _Jim!_ ”

McCoy’s never heard a sound like that come out of Spock; for a moment it even distracts him from the man on the table, but then Jim is shivering with cold and what else McCoy can’t guess, because even if he’s solved his capital-letter problem he’s just bought himself a whole bunch of new ones. Jim’s heart rate and BP are surging past normal, his temperature is rising rapidly and his immune system, as unpredictable as the rest of him, seems to be doing its best to kill the thing that saved it. McCoy feels both razor-sharp joy and surging panic.

Luckily he’s a doctor first, before anything else. He yells orders--for his nurses, for hypos and neural scans and blood tests--with hardly a quaver in his voice. Spock, paler even than usual, steps out of his way and summons Security to take Khan back to the brig, while the son of a bitch keeps sitting there, spine ramrod straight, watching the whole scene unfold like it’s some amateur circus that’s failing to entertain him.

“There are no miracles, Doctor,” Khan says, before permitting the red shirts to take him away. “I’m sure you know that. There’s a price to be paid for everything.”

McCoy doesn’t bother to answer, just brushes his hand against rapidly warming flesh and thinks, _Whatever it is, I’ll pay it._ Jim, alive, is the only thing he’ll want ever again.

 

**Day 2**

 

The last time the _Enterprise_ limped back to spacedock there’d been giddy relief amid the sadness, a young crew that wasn’t supposed to be there to begin with doing the impossible, with a captain who wasn’t even supposed to be on board. The ship now is a perforated ruin, its surviving crew bruised and torpedo-shocked.

Whatever else he did to patch the crew up during the hours it took Starfleet to tow them in, McCoy at least spared them one terrible thing. The crew knows that their captain survived, though the ‘Fleet honor guard waiting at the dock looks confused, especially the guy carrying the flag. McCoy wondered who on the bridge had had the presence of mind to report Kirk’s apparent death. He passes Chekov and Sulu, fighting an uphill battle to help organize the triage; they see Jim and the ghost of what didn’t happen passes across their faces before they nod to McCoy and get on with their jobs.

McCoy sticks to Jim’s anti-grav stretcher like glue, pushing it past a team of medics that want to get their hands on _him_ (despite the fact that Medical never lost gravity), past a grim-looking gaggle of senior officers barking orders into their communicators, and into the shuttle bay, since Jim is still technically coding even though his vitals have reached some kind of weird, way-above-normal stasis.

He pulls up at the first medical transport he can lay eyes on.

“What are we looking at here?” the medic asks, giving Jim a scan; his records are in the _Enterprise_ ’s central storage, which may not be currently capable of adding 2 and 2.

There’s a heartbeat where McCoy wonders if he can skip the part about the augmented blood, as he flash-forwards to the days full of questions that are going to arise from it. But McCoy’s going to need a lot of help, and the fate of his commission is the least of his worries.

“Cardiac death following delta radiation poisoning. Massive tissue damage subsequently repaired with an unknown human blood agent, allowing resuscitation of the patient.” McCoy finishes with a nod, fairly satisfied at his clinical description of _died and rose from the dead_.

The medic’s professional poker face breaks a little and she pauses her scan to flip a lock of red hair out of her eyes. She can’t be more than Jim’s age, probably another of the bright-eyed recruits who signed up after Vulcan. McCoy wonders how long it will take to rebuild Starfleet this time.

“Okay, Priority 1, then. He’ll be taken straight to the Internal Medicine ICU.” She injects the code chip into the pale, waxy skin above Jim’s clavicle. McCoy doesn’t move; he’s aware enough to realize that he’s half in shock, that he’s sweating even though he feels as cool as Jim’s skin, as space itself, that he wants desperately to do something foolish and human like brush a hand over Jim’s hair and wish him luck, but he’s being held in place by more than the medic’s bright eyes.

“Uh, sir?” she says. “We’ll take good care of him. You probably want to get back to the evac.” She gestures to the tumult behind him, and McCoy remembers that he’s CMO, that he’s _Jim’s_ CMO.

“You’re right,” he says after moment. “I have other patients.” Jim disappears into the interior of the shuttle and it’s the last of him McCoy sees for a good, long while.

*****

McCoy doesn’t want to eat, but somebody--one of the endless, bustling somebodies--puts him in a chair and sets a tray in front of him. McCoy doesn’t want to shower, but when someone points him toward a fresher, he gives himself a perfunctory go-over with a manual sonic. He doesn’t want to sleep-- _can’t sleep_ \--and luckily everybody seems to have forgotten about that; there’s no night in the city any more, so as soon as he’s changed into a clean planetside uniform, McCoy heads over to Medical.

Swiping his finger over the scanner in the security kiosk does nothing--McCoy guesses a lot of Starfleet’s central computers have been taken down--so he enters as a visitor, a slow and tedious progression through through layers of staff and medics. The waiting room is full to bursting with the injured (McCoy helps briefly with triage) and people trying to find loved ones. At last, McCoy finds his.

“Ah, Dr. McCoy. I’ve been expecting you.” Even without her nametag, McCoy would recognize Dr. Adeola Kosoko, holder of the Stader Chair in Trauma Medicine and someone who’d had a prominent place on McCoy’s _Do not piss off_ list at the Academy. Dr. Kosoko is tall, of indeterminate old age, and looking less harried by her massive caseload than McCoy feels with his single one.

“I came as fast as I could. Goddamned computers--” _Calm_ , he reminds himself, _deep breaths. I want to see Jim._ “Sorry. You know everything’s pretty much gone to hell. How is he?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” She parts the curtains and there Jim is, rigged up on a biobed, pale as the sheets. A day later and stubble is scratching at McCoy’s chin where the beard suppressor is wearing off, but Jim’s face is as still and perfect as if he were still frozen. So many things about the situation frighten McCoy, but right now the one that has him most scared is how easy it would be to lose track of Jim, his vibrant friend now a helpless body adrift on a sea of chaos-weakened bureaucracy.

Dr. Kosoko taps the padd in her hand, summoning his attention. “It says here that you tried a, hmm, _experimental_ treatment on Captain Kirk. And that this experimental treatment reversed the effects of terminal Delta radiation poisoning.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“ _Terminal_ ,” Dr. Kosoko repeats again, looking at him sharply. “A massive exposure that should have killed him.”

“It _did_ kill him,” McCoy says, eyes darting to Jim reflexively to remind himself Jim’s still there.

“I see.” Dr. Kosoko’s gaze reverts to professional neutrality, though McCoy can guess what she thinks about this bizarre report from an unshaven and traumatized man. “Well. There’s no question he’s alive, although I’m concerned about his neural function following his period of--” She diplomatically lets the word drop. “I’ve asked two of my colleagues in Neurology to consult. In the meantime we’re keeping him on Level 2 life support pending further evaluation.”

“Of course.” McCoy reaches a hand toward the padd. “May I see the analytics?”

But Dr. Kosoko keeps the padd at her side. “I’m sorry, but you’re not assigned to Captain Kirk’s case. You are, however, listed as having his medical power of attorney, so I’ll certainly give you regular updates on his progress.”

“What in the--” McCoy tries not to sputter. “I’m the CMO of the _Enterprise_ , with primary responsibility for the Captain’s--”

“The _Enterprise_ has been moved to inactive status pending evaluation, and most of its personnel as well. It says here that you’re waiting to be debriefed by Command, and that in the meantime you’re not cleared to practice medicine at Starfleet Medical.” Kosoko’s voice, though firm, is not unsympathetic. “You’re welcome, of course, to see Captain Kirk during visiting hours.”

“ _Visiting_ hours?” McCoy rubs a hand across his prickly jaw, too bewildered to do more than raise his voice. “You’ve got a hospital full of injured people, and I can’t help them?”

Dr. Kosoko shrugs apologetically. “The city’s full of people who can use your help, I’m sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients. Please let the nurse know when you’re done visiting with Captain Kirk.”

 _Visiting_ reminds McCoy of home, of his dad stopping in on the pretext of checking up on a patient and staying for lemonade and cookies and a good gossip. There’s no Jim to visit with because Jim is locked away in his own head, for how long, McCoy has no idea. McCoy’s anguish fluctuates in and out of self pity; the only thing he could do right now to make himself feel better, he’s forbidden from doing. He wishes he could complain about it, to Jim, but his friend isn’t here.

So McCoy does what he can: pulls the heat blanket up a little higher, check the leads on the neurometer (they seem loose, and McCoy isn’t sure the busy nurse will notice), and resists the urge touch the lax hand lying on the covers. At least some color has returned to Jim’s cheeks, and as his mother used to say, where there’s life, there’s hope.

 _I’m sorry_.

“Okay, then, Jim,” he says, giving the blanket a final pat. “Sleep well. See ya soon.”

 

**Day 3**

 

The city, like the _Enterprise_ , is a wreck of twisted metal, shell-shocked people being herded from corner to corner by endless lines of security and medical teams. The sky is choked with planetary rescue craft and extraplanetary ones as well: McCoy saw a Tellarian ship use a skyhook to move the top 8 stories of the Procyon Tower into the air and off to god knows where (the Ecomonitoring Authority already having put its foot down about dropping anything into the Bay).

The bodies--McCoy knows, from whispers around the Starfleet campus, that there are thousands--are removed with care and stealth to avoid further traumatizing the living. The injured are taken into hospitals according to the seriousness of their injuries, which means that for the first time in modern memory, there are people wounded and in pain with no choice but to wait.

So McCoy spends his spare hours roaming the city with his medkit, looking for people tagged with yellow or orange triage lights, with wounds and sprains and sometimes worse. Mostly they find him, thanks to the shirt and the badge, though his Starfleet status is still an open question.

He’s sealing a gash on a woman’s arm when the badge peeps. He’s been waiting for it all afternoon but he still nearly starts out of his skin, which startles the woman in turn and makes her look skyward: _up_ , where bad things come from.

McCoy finishes the job and hurries back to the Neurology ward where Jim--capable even now of pulling the plummest assignments--has been given a room to himself.

“Dr. McCoy,” says Dr. Kosoko, taking in his bloodstained tunic and the dust in his hair, “I’m glad you were able to join us. These are my colleagues, Dr. Boyce and Dr. T’Kan.” There are grim faces but collegial handshakes all round; the protocols must be respected. T’Kan is a distinguished Vulcan neurologist on the faculty; Boyce, a jowly, silver-haired human with narrow, skeptical eyes.

“Captain Kirk is currently in an induced coma pending evaluation of the impact of novel cellular regeneration following his exposure to Delta radiation,” T’Kan begins. “While his organ and cellular function appear largely restored, the regeneration process has led, via an unknown mechanism, to swelling of brain tissue. As this may exacerbate brain injury stemming from the initial hypoxia, it is our recommendation that he be kept in the coma until the swelling resolves or a more accurate prognosis can be determined. For now we wish to know whether this meets with your approval. Captain Kirk’s medical directive was deemed insufficient for this unusual situation.”

They all stare at him as if he can even think right now, let alone come to any kind of cogent conclusion. “What’s the alternative? Let him wake up and treat any possible brain injury?”

Boyce nods. “Precisely. Given the, uh, unorthodox nature of the treatment he received, we’d be in what you might call uncharted territory. There’s no way to know how much brain damage, if any, he’s suffered. The last scans of Kirk’s brain are from two months ago, so they’d be about as useful as a screen door on a starship.”

McCoy bristles at what he considers unbecoming levity, and the general air of judgement from these august doctors who practice space medicine on the ground. He feels disapproval in the way T’Kan stands between him and Jim’s bed, how Kosoko keeps her padd tilted away from him. He wants to ask what they would do, with someone they love dead on one side and the blood that would save him on the other. But the possibility of brain damage puts the whole mess on new and terrible ground. _Unintended consequences_ he thinks, looking at Jim’s artificially placid face. _Off into the unknown again. But I’ve always had you with me before._

He’d give his left arm to be able to _do_ something, to review the brain imaging or have access to a lab or maybe just run a tricorder over Jim, something Jim hates but McCoy finds grounding. But he’s not here as a doctor. He’s not next of kin, either; that would be Winona, wherever in the galaxy she might be. What Jim entrusted to McCoy, he did so because they were friends, colleagues, because of McCoy’s alleged professional ability and ethics, and because they never expected to be in this situation in the first place.

 _I’m sorry_.

“Go ahead,” McCoy says, feeling his shoulders slump with a new burden. There’s no blaze of hope, no surge of adrenaline, just a silent wish that Jim will be back sometime soon to tell him he was wise, or an idiot. That, and waiting.

 

**Day 4**

 

Under Admiral Marcus’s reign, Starfleet had emphasized resource utilization, including a mandate that personnel who shipped out for more than three months had their personal possessions put in storage so their quarters could be reassigned. Since this didn’t apply to the rank of captain and above, Jim had invited McCoy to dump his stuff in Jim’s spare bedroom, where McCoy had occasionally also dumped his exhausted body after nights on the town.

What all this meant was that if McCoy wanted to have more than a change of underwear to his name, he had to go to Jim’s apartment. Pre-Khan, most of the Starfleet brass lived in a gleaming tower just south of the campus, but Jim had managed to wangle himself an apartment in a mid-rise in Sutro Heights, loaded with 22nd century charm and boasting one-half of an ocean view.

McCoy takes the cramped turbolift up to the 18th floor and swipes his finger over the lock. The door opens with a _pop_ and a _whoosh_ of air as the pressure seal releases, admitting him along with whatever tiny flecks of dust will settle on Jim’s unused furniture.

“Blinds, 30 percent.”

The blinds snap open at McCoy’s command, and the apartment is filled with early-evening sunlight. The sunset _might_ be spectacular, but he’s had his heart broken too many times before when slate-grey clouds gathered just above the horizon. Instead, he makes a cursory check: a few hanging epiphytic plants, a closed-system fish tank, everything uncharacteristically orderly the way Jim left it before he shipped out, not the usual chaos of strewn clothes and week-old coffee cups. Jim isn’t much of a nester--even his mild affection for this apartment is unusual--but the few things he’s accumulated are on view in the living room: a holo of the _Enterprise_ ’s maiden flight, a Kalan mud basket from their first extrasolar mission, and in a transparent aluminum case well out of the danger zone of Jim’s parties, the wooden ship model Admiral Pike gave him as a graduation present. It’s a fragile thing full of tiny details McCoy’s sun-dazzled eyes can’t make out, but he knows the nameplate on its prow says _Enterprise_. There had been two of her name in that era, Jim told him; the one Pike had chosen was the one that had come safe home.

McCoy opens the little cabinet that Jim uses as a bar and pours himself a bourbon to toast Pike’s memory. It’s bitterly unfair: twice Pike had undertaken a mission, full of vigor and promise, and twice it had all come apart on him. The first time at least he’d seen Jim, his son in all but name, make some order out of the chaos, but the second time even Jim hadn’t been able to save him. All that’s left is putting things back together.

At least the apartment faces away from the ruins of the city; the only trace McCoy can see is the ever-present dust and smoke dancing in the golden slices of sunlight. Beyond that, the Pacific ebbs and flows in tranquil blue and silver.

McCoy raises his glass to the little ship, downs the contents, and heads to the spare bedroom, intending to stuff a few changes of civvies into his bag and go. The thought of going back to his room in the Transient Personnel dorm makes his stomach burn more than the liquor. It’s closer to the hospital, but Sutro Heights is still only minutes away by hover cab. If Jim were conscious there’d be no question of his staying here. Maybe Jim would help him move the boxes off the spare bed, or maybe he’d bunk with Jim the way he did a few late nights in the in-between time after graduation and before they shipped out. He closes his eyes, just for a second, and he can feel Jim’s weight in the bed, see the sprawl of naked limbs, Jim boundaryless even in sleep, while McCoy curls up on his side, trying to respect the 50/50 rule.

 _Even epiphytic plants do better with a little water,_ McCoy thinks. He drops his bag, forages for pajamas, and tries to remember whether the good Indian place on 48th Street delivers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 5**

 

McCoy’s developed a sixth sense for when Spock is lurking behind him, maybe because he frequently is. Most of the bridge crew have cycled through during visiting hours--Jim’s bedside table holds a plant with orange leaves left by Sulu, and the remains of a sandwich Uhura brought McCoy from the commissary--but Spock’s presence is a nagging near-constant.

“Dr. Boyce informs me that Jim’s condition has stabilized to the point where his status is no longer considered ‘critical’,” Spock says, addressing the space to the left of McCoy’s ear.

“Oh, does he? That’s interesting, he hasn’t told me. Maybe he’s been too busy fielding questions from random commanders.”

“I did not mean to intrude on your area of professional expertise,” Spock says huffily. “I saw him at this morning’s meeting of the Commission of Inquiry. Jim’s outcome has many strategic implications.”

“No doubt. I’m glad the Admiralty isn’t letting a little thing like the destruction of San Francisco get in the way of their long-term planning.” McCoy’s well aware that his prickles are intended to deflect, but the topic of the Admiralty makes him uneasy. If they’re probing into Jim’s medical condition, it can’t be long before they’ll want to inquire into certain ethical violations committed by the CMO. It’s not that he fears the Admiralty--post-Marcus, and with the exception of Pike, he’s very much feeling that the Admiralty can go hang itself--it’s that he has no idea what he’s going to say.

“You may also wish to know that they also expressed their hopes for Jim’s speedy recovery,” Spock continues. “Ensign Chekov and Lieutenant Commander Scott also wanted me to convey these sentiments, as they have not seen you for several days.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been busy.” McCoy, aware that he’s mumbling, tries again with more conviction. “I’ve had a few more things than bullpucky Starfleet inquiries to attend to.”

“I see.” Spock does a flyby of Jim’s bed, dark eyes sweeping over the biodisplays that ring him as if he’s some great ship at spacedock. “It was my understanding that your credentials with the hospital had not yet been reinstated. Therefore I do not believe that you are busy with your medical practice. I also do not believe that Jim would want you to spend so much of your time at his bedside when it serves no practical purpose.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s something you’d know, wouldn’t you, since you’ve been his best friend since the day before yesterday.” McCoy is taken aback by his own anger, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to back down, not with Spock giving him that look of bemused surprise, better suited to a grant review board than a formerly dead friend’s bedside.

“I do not believe I have not tried to claim that status.”

“You--” McCoy clenches his fists to keep himself from sputtering. “I don’t think you really even _liked_ him, before or after he saved your life.”

“My liking him was immaterial; he is my commanding officer. However, I admit that the prospect of his imminent death caused me to reconsider his many fine qualities.” Spock pauses, and frowns. “That was a failure of logic on my part.”

“A failure of--” McCoy feels like a phaser set on overload. But there’s something in Spock’s face, as he looks at Jim’s, maybe a wonder at how a brittle working relationship had turned into friendship and then into something McCoy and maybe even Spock can’t put a name to. And he remembers that Spock cried.

“Yeah, well,” McCoy says, releasing a breath. “I call that _regret_ , and it’s pretty common. That’s why it’s better to get everything in the open while someone’s still alive. Dead is too late.”

There’s a long pause where they both turn to contemplate Jim’s still body. McCoy is reminded of the barbaric old custom of viewing preserved dead bodies and feels a chill across his neck.

“Both Nyota and Jim were angry at me for my willingness to sacrifice my life to save the Nibirans,” Spock says unexpectedly into the silence. “I admit I do not understand this, as I thought humans acknowledge the evolutionary benefits of altruism. And that such a death may be considered good, as Khan said.”

“Don’t quote that bastard to me,” McCoy snaps. “There’s no such thing as a good death.” Seeing Spock’s almost imperceptible flinch, he adds, “Like most human things, it’s complicated. Society may say you’re very noble; everybody loves a hero. But the people close to you may disagree.”

“Surak teaches the logic of the greatest good for the greatest number. If more lives than one can be saved by one’s own death, then it is one’s obligation to give it up. But you are suggesting that the value of my life to Nyota and Jim should have been given greater weight.”

“Because they had to live with the consequences. Choices like that aren’t independent variables. Now, I’m not saying you made a wrong decision--I’m one of those folks who happens to believe self-sacrifice is admirable--but people may not appreciate it if you act like the choice was easy.”

Spock cocks his head, considering. “Therefore, the socially acceptable behavior was for me to perform the same action, but with a greater appearance of regret?”

“Oh, you’re hopeless,” McCoy says, surrendering to his annoyance. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Maybe you can arrange to be gone when I get back.”

 

**Day 6**

 

_Jim sits in the command chair, leaning forward in tense expectancy, gripping the arms. The viewscreen is black; McCoy can’t see whatever threat has riveted Jim’s attention, but his scan shows the effects on Jim’s vitals: elevated heart rate, increased oxygen absorption. McCoy drops a hand onto his shoulder but Jim shrugs it off; he’s coiled like a snake, waiting to strike._

_When Jim’s in the chair, McCoy is never sure whether to be scared for him or of him. He’s got all the power of the great ship at his fingertips, but the thought doesn’t calm McCoy the way it did with Pike. Jim’s unpredictability may be his greatest strength but it’s scary as hell, and McCoy watches Jim’s eyes go cold and his jaw tighten with stomach-clenching expectation of the myriad horrors that lurk in the darkness..._

_It’s later, and the Thing, whatever it was, is defeated. The lights are low in Jim’s cabin and he strips slowly, letting the gold tunic fall to the floor. McCoy is in bed already, naked, the non-dream part of his brain wondering why he doesn’t go to help Jim, undress him and kiss him and run his hands over Jim’s tired body. But his dream-self just waits, watches with jaded appreciation at each swath of pale flesh being revealed, the sturdy polyx fabric of Jim’s uniform trousers sliding over smooth muscle as the captain of the Enterprise does, indeed, take his pants off one leg at a time._

_Jim half-slides, half crawls into his own bed while McCoy relaxes, expansive, hands behind his head, erection complacent, secure in the knowledge it’s about to get some attention. And Jim wastes no time, going down on him with enthusiastic obedience as McCoy, from his impossible dream-vantage point, contemplates his ass and what he plans to do with it._

_“Suck harder. No hands, just your mouth.” McCoy doesn’t have to say it, he just thinks it, and Jim is pulling him into a vortex of wet bliss, golden head bobbing up and down, pink lips warm and stretched wide. He feels like he could stay hard forever, feels with a surge of giddy power that he never has to come, that as long as he stays in Jim’s mouth everything will be perfect and unchanging._

McCoy wakes with a dry mouth, a guilty conscience, and a raging hard-on. Bad enough that he dreamed about sex with Jim, but the way he treated him--like some empty vessel for his pleasure--makes him want to take the ancient copy of Freud’s _Interpretation of Dreams_ that his daddy gave him for a graduation present and drive a stake through its heart.

He’d had sex with Jim, of that there was no doubt, but it was something they’d given each other, out of desperation and exhaustion and limited options. A gift, freely shared, not just taken for pleasure. But it _had_ been pleasure, a lot of it, as McCoy’s assertive cock reminds him when he gets up and tries to take a piss. Maybe it’s a gift or a curse from Jim’s bed, whose durable foam has bounced back, resilient, from how many nights of lusty play McCoy can only guess, and whose cool sheets (in his imagination, anyway) still smell like Jim.

McCoy drinks a glass of water, tells the thermostat to drop another degree, and flops back against the pillows, wide awake. In resignation more than anticipation he wraps his right hand around his cock, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to summon an appropriate image--Jocelyn, naked and laughing; an ensign from the _Tripoli_ , giving him a good-natured hand job in a fresher on Starbase 37; a stranger of indeterminate gender who’d smelled like lilacs on Klidos IV. His sexual experiences in space have been infrequent, but not so much that he should feel this hard up, in the midst of a tragedy that should be draining his libido along with his energy. But nothing will satisfy his stubborn erection but the thought of Jim, the way he was in his quarters in orbit above Anatereon.

_For 30 hours the Anatereons kept them in fear for their ship, their lives; through endless negotiation and threats, demonstrations of power followed at neck-cracking speed with gifts and promises of friendship, illusions and headgames, McCoy filling his hypo while Scotty filled the torpedo bays, with stimulants and sedatives and anti-psychotics. In the end, the Anatereons let let them fly free, alive but with no satisfactory conclusion, no contact and nothing to report except that there was another powerful race out there that didn’t seem to like them._

_McCoy follows Jim to his quarters, worried about Jim’s mental state when he probably should be be worried about his own. Jim’s face is ashen, slack with exhaustion; there are dark circles under his eyes and darker ones ringing his irises, usually so blue but now as faded as the rest of him. McCoy’s exhausted brain has a strange idea that that’s what the Anatereons wanted from them: their color, their vitality._

_He makes a move to scan Jim, but Jim catches his wrist, twitches the beginnings of a smile that collapses in on itself. A moment later Jim is crying in his arms, quiet and miserable, hopeless of relief. All he can do is stroke Jim’s back, shaking and damp with sweat; all he_ thinks _he can do, until Jim begins to kiss him._

 _There’s no surprise to it; it feels right, and comfortable, Jim’s lips so warm and soft it couldn’t be anything but easy. The way to bed is like a garden path at twilight, calm and gentle, their bodies already familiar to each other. This is what McCoy craves, not mystery and passion, but the comfort of intimate knowledge. They know how to take care of each other, and what they don’t know, they can guess. When McCoy falls asleep that night in Jim’s bed, with Jim’s lax arm across his chest and Jim’s soft, regular breaths inches away, he knows he’s done something good and right. And then morning comes, and the day after, and the_ Enterprise _flies off to its next adventure, and McCoy, from a failure of courage or imagination, never follows up, but lets them both relapse back into a friendship that’s close and valuable and still only a shadow of what he wants._

McCoy grips himself tight and finishes with a stuttering cry that there’s no one there to hear.

 

**Day 7**

 

McCoy wakes up, sweaty and cotton-mouthed, to find his father standing over him.

It takes a moment to realize that he’s not dreaming, and another to register that he’s naked and pull the covers over himself. He should be surprised, but what he mostly feels is an echo of adolescent shame. His first words--”How did you find me?”--don’t help.

“Wasn’t so difficult,” David McCoy says, perching on the bed and oblivious to his discomfort. “I told Starfleet I was next-of-kin and they have you chipped, I guess. The building manager let me in when I showed him my medical credentials. For the record, in case he asks, I _am_ worried about your mental health.”

“I’m fine,” McCoy protests. “I sent you messages saying so.”

“ _Two_ whole text messages, when the _Enterprise_ came home looking like Swiss cheese and half the city’s a smoking ruin. And then you don’t answer your comm.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Oh, yes, I can see that.” David’s dark eyes rake over the tangled sheets, and McCoy takes a moment to actually look at him. The shock of white hair is as thick as ever, but his father looks thinner than when he last saw him, more than a year ago. The McCoy side of the family runs to tall and rangy, but there’s an unfamiliar spareness about him, and circles under his eyes that McCoy hopes he didn’t put there.

“Dad, I’m sorry,” he says. “If I worried you, I mean. I should have thought about it, but things have been just so--I don’t know, so _strange_ , and I kind of forgot anything was happening outside of--”

“I know,” David says, stopping him with a hand on his knee. “That’s why I’m here. Now can you make me a cup of coffee? I saw two patients first thing this morning and I couldn’t sleep a wink on that blasted pneumorail.”

McCoy can, and even manages to scrounge up day-old sourdough and butter and set it on the glass table in Jim’s dining nook. The view is decidedly stormy; the slice of ocean he can see is iron gray with angry white foam, and rain dashes against the window in hard, cold drops. _At least it will help settle the dust_ , he thinks.

“Nice place,” David says. “Do you live here?”

“No, it’s Jim’s.”

“I know.” David takes the time to level a teaspoon of sugar before dumping it in his cup. “The super told me. I meant, do you live here, too? I don’t see your books.”

McCoy shifts uncomfortably. “No, I don’t have a place of my own, not while I’m supposed to be on active duty. I left my things here, and Jim--why do you think I’d be living with Jim, anyway?”

“No special reason.” David blows on his coffee. “Just thought that you and I were of a mind about living alone.”

McCoy’s grabs at the excuse for a diversion. “How is mom, anyway? You heard from her lately?”

“Climbing in the Himalayas, last I heard. I left her a message that you were alright, but she’ll probably get it before she gets the news about this whole mess.”

“Must be nice to be somewhere you don’t have to deal with it.”

“Oh, now, sonny boy, don’t be mean. She didn’t go there to get away from us. Not from you, anyway. Getting away from me was just a bonus.”

Leonard marvels at how David can say it without bitterness. Leonard’s own divorce is almost as old as his father’s, and he has decades less to show for his marriage. But David stayed in the same house with the same dog, and Leonard joined the Foreign Legion to escape the constant reminders of his failure. His parents’ divorce wasn’t over anything in particular except his mother getting tired of being in one place with David, a lovable, immovable post.

“Yeah, well, I don’t see it myself,” Leonard says, clearing his throat. “Running all over the galaxy hasn’t bought me anything but trouble. Maybe I should have just stayed home.”

It could be the last word that does it, or maybe the thought that David had left his beloved wingback chair to come across a continent to make sure his wayward son is alright. Or maybe it’s just the sight of those fine-boned doctor’s hands stirring too much sugar his coffee, the way they had so many quiet evenings, when McCoy’s worst problem was a bad grade or a pretty girl making fun of him. Whatever it is, he feels a tight ball of something dark and hard unwind in his chest, more than he can pass off with a laugh or a sigh, and so there’s nothing for him to do but begin to weep.

He hides his face in his arms, out of shame or some childish habit, and hears David’s spoon drop on the glass table with a metallic _clink_. Trying to stop so as not to alarm his father only makes it worse, and he ends up choking out muffled sobs into the elbow of his shirt. It feels terrible and like a wonderful luxury at the same time.

“Oh, son,” David says, patting his arm, and when McCoy raises his head to try to reassure him, David pulls him into his arms in an awkward screech of chairs and arrangement of bony limbs.

McCoy rests his hot, tear-streaked face against his father’s shoulder and feels calm and sane for the first time in a week.

“That’s good, that’s good,” David says, unembarrassed. He’s a practical man but a kind one, and tears are the last bodily fluid that would disturb him. When McCoy raises his head at last, David pulls a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to him.

“You should come home,” he says. “This has been sheer hell for you. I don’t just mean the business with the city blowing up, I mean the whole thing, ever since you shipped out. I know why you wanted to get away, but that’s over now; Jocelyn’s in Chicago and that high school buddy of yours, Kyle Wilmer--wasn’t he studying to be an architect?--he bought the Simms place and is moving back. There are at least a dozen new kids in walking distance, and I can’t keep up this pace forever. Come home and take over the practice.”

“I can’t, Dad. You know that.” McCoy rubs his wet face with the sleeve of his shirt and feels 12 years old. “You may find it hard to believe, but I _like_ what I’m doing. It’s not just all the travel, it’s the people. They’re the best in the world at what they do. This is where I want to be.” He hopes it sounds convincing, even if his voice is rough with tears. It’s not the truth--the truth is that he’s here because of Jim, doomed to follow him across the galaxy, the hopeless way he’d chased Jocelyn; caught up to her, and lost her again. Jim had tried to escape him through the gates of death itself, and McCoy had refused to give up. He’s not sure if his tenacity is noble or pathetic, but he gets a hint from the resigned half-smile on his father’s face.

“Alright, then,” David says, collecting their coffee cups and giving his son a final squeeze of the shoulder. “I just hope he’s worth it.”

 

**Day 8**

 

With no post at Medical, McCoy improvises an office in a study cube in the Library. He’s got all the time he always said he wanted, but spends more of it skimming thrice-read novels than catching up on medical journals or visiting friends. He’s studying a particularly interesting crack on the wall when Uhura slides open the glass door and sticks her head in.

“Lunch?” she asks, and adds before he can answer, “no Mess Hall. Today’s special is Luau Redbat, I checked. Somewhere off campus.”

The old hydrofoil ferries, beloved of tourists, are running again, and over McCoy’s weak objections Uhura puts his communicator into emergency mode and pushes him onto one.

Halfway across the bay the fog stops like a magician’s trick and they’re in bright sunshine, the first McCoy feels like he’s had on his face in a week. They go to a little Mediterranean place in Sausalito with a grape arbor and fat clay pots brimming with grey sage and red geraniums. It’s lovely but nearly deserted, even on this fine day; so many have fled the city, and McCoy wonders how many of them will come back.

Uhura orders bread and olives for the table and a bottle of Orvieto. They’ve picked a table that faces Richardson Bay, away from the maimed skyline of San Francisco. McCoy watches a bead of water slide down the side of his glass and feels the corners of his mouth turn down.

“Don’t feel guilty,” Uhura says, reading his mind. “Us being miserable isn’t going to make any of this better.”

“I know. It’s worse than that; I feel like I have to do 10 times as much living, for the people who can’t. And I just don’t have the energy for it. Goddamn brass aren’t helping, either; when I ask how come I can’t return to duty, I get are a bunch of sorry excuses.”

“Count yourself lucky,” Uhura says. “I’ve probably given 20 hours of testimony in the last week. This thing’s going to drag on for a long time. The only thing moving fast is senior command, away from Admiral Marcus.”

“And that’s another thing,” McCoy says, jabbing the air with a breadstick. “How come they haven’t called me? I know everybody forgets about Medical during an attack, but I did--you know, stuff.”

Uhura gives a little snort. “I know you did. I did plenty of 'stuff' myself. They haven’t said it point-blank, but I think they’re suspicious of anyone who had contact with--with _him_.” A passing cloud throws the table into shadow, and for a moment McCoy feels like she’s summoned Khan like the Devil in an old story. “That could be the reason, though--him giving you his blood, I mean.”

“ _Giving_? He didn’t _give_ me anything.”

Uhura frowns and drops her voice, even though the only other couple on the terrace are clearly too wrapped up in each other to be eavesdropping. “He _said_ he did. In the transcripts, I mean--he hasn’t testified publicly. But he said that he was the one who told you about what his blood could do, and that once we had him back on the ship, he let you take it.”

“No,” McCoy says. There’s a sudden, sharp pain between his eyes; he doesn’t want to think about Khan and his infinitely complex machinations. “No, no, no. I found out about the blood by--accident, I guess. Regular ol’ curiosity. And we _took_ his blood. Spock helped hold him down; he must have told you that.”

“It’s been in our best interest not to tell each other too much,” Uhura says with a tight smile. “When it comes to Jim, Spock has a hard time controlling his emotions, no matter what he says. Also, he’s a terrible liar. Which is strange, because he corroborated what Khan said.”

“What, that Khan gave us his blood all wrapped up like a birthday present?” McCoy’s puzzlement turns to outright disbelief. “Why would he say that? Why would _either_ of them say that?”

“Khan may want leverage. It’d be awfully hard to get rid of someone whose blood has the power to cure diseases. By the way, he’s claiming that he’s the only one of the Augments who has it, that he developed it himself. Sorry, doctor--if the Commission of Inquiry believes him, you won’t be going into the medical history books.”

“Fine with me, but then why _Spock_?”

“I think he learned something from the Nibiru inquiry. Something like _Don’t throw your shipmates under a hoverbus_.”

“Ah.” McCoy isn’t sure what to do with this information, as his resentment of Spock has been simmering nicely. “Thing is, if they call me, I’m going to have to tell the truth.”

“Maybe they won’t ask? Not about the particulars, anyway. And if they don’t, my advice is not to tell them.”

“Oh, really?” McCoy cocks an eyebrow at her. “Are you getting cynical about Starfleet Command, Lieutenant?”

“Not enough to outright lie. But Len, they’re desperate--this is a first-order fuck up. Starfleet’s probably riddled with spies, secret organizations--it’s going to take years to sort out. They could pin it all on Marcus, but I have a feeling they’re looking to spread it around. Please don’t make their job any easier.”

“Lucky everybody always forgets about the doctor,” McCoy says gloomily, reaching for the bottle of wine. “Guess we should be glad Jim’s not around for this. He never has learned to keep his mouth shut.”

The corners of Uhura’s mouth twitch up. “Here’s to Jim coming back to cause trouble soon,” she says, and clinks her glass against his. McCoy manages to find the appetite for his plate of fettuccine with pesto, feeling lighter out of the shadow of the city despite all the talk of Khan and doom.

“You know who I think I feel worst for out of all of this?” Uhura says. “Among the living, I mean? Carol Marcus.”

McCoy realizes, guiltily, that he hasn’t thought about Carol since they got back. “Have you seen her? How’s she holding up?”

“How anyone would if their father was the greatest villain in Starfleet history. She wants to go home, but they won’t let her until the inquiry is over. She sends her best, by the way--she wanted to see Jim but she wasn’t sure if she’d be welcome.”

“Of course she would. By me, anyway. I liked her--very bright woman. Thought she’d make a nice addition to the crew, if only so’s she could tell Spock he’s wrong now and then.”

“I’ll let her know you said that.” Uhura pats McCoy’s sleeve in gratitude. “And now, can I talk you into sharing a tartuffo?”

“I’m in,” McCoy says, but not before stealing a glance over his shoulder and across the bay at the city, shrouded in fog, dust and hovering craft like a nightmare that won’t end.


	3. Chapter 3

 

**Day 9**

 

McCoy begins his day at Jim’s bedside, sipping coffee and watching a Kalkan serial drama on his padd when he isn’t watching Jim. Doctors and nurses drift in and out, greeting him with polite professionalism and then ignoring him. He has no idea why he feels compelled to be here day after day, or how many days his life can remain in stasis, but of all the alternatives, only one is welcome. For the rest, he’d rather stay in the familiar punctuated quiet of a hospital, soothed by the steady rise and fall of Jim’s living breath.

By mid-morning he’s feeling brave enough to look at the news feeds, and almost immediately shuts them off again. With the injured attended to and the worst of the damage under control, it’s turned into a feeding frenzy of blame; even the Federation News Network, that staid voice of officialdom, is falling off its chair at each new revelation of Admiral Marcus’s crimes and conspiracies.

He thinks of Carol, and messages Uhura for her contact key--not the official Fleet one that’s probably a constant screech of interview requests, but the one she gives to friends. Even so, it’s hours before she answers his friendly, nonspecific inquiry with _So nice to hear from you! Do you have time for coffee?_ followed by a map reference.

The cafe she picks isn’t one of the rustic, burlap-and-brick places favored by the students, or even the gleaming replimats that attract the officers; it’s a drab and empty Denebian bakery on Beulah Street. McCoy finds her sitting alone at a corner table, looking small and pale in an oversized sweater, its azure blue color a reminder of less troubled times.

“ _Thanks_ , Leonard,” she says, rising and giving him a surprise peck on the cheek. “Len? Leo? I don’t know what you prefer. We never got to that bit.”

“We were too busy trying not to set off bombs. Len will do fine.” It’s not a nickname he usually favors, but he likes the way she says it, clipped and precise, with a slight roll of the tongue. “Interesting place.”

“Not popular on a Tuesday afternoon, though I hear the starch cubes are rather good,” Carol says, nodding toward the glutinous goodies turning dry-edged under an infrared light.

“Hmm,” McCoy says, pretending to deliberate. “You having anything?”

“Just a coffee, I think. The pastries are a bit gritty for my taste; I’m not really in the mood.”

McCoy can’t think of any question that would be appropriate, so he lets Carol talk.

“You don’t know how happy I was to get your text,” she says. “My friends have all been very sweet, but everything they say is wrong. And my family--they put my mother in an inpatient counseling program. They were afraid--” She chokes a little, taking a swig of coffee to cover it up. “Anyway, it’s all gotten to be a bit much. All I want is an offworld assignment, but they won’t let me leave until the hearings are over, which will be the 10th of Never. Oh, God--this all sounds so miserably self-centered, I know.” She brushes his sleeve in apology. “Thousands of people dead, and I haven’t even asked about Jim--”

“Just because others have it worse, doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have feelings.” It makes Leonard feel guilty for the bubble he’s been living in, maybe using Jim as a shield against dealing with everything else. “And Jim’s--the same. They may try bringing him out of the coma in a couple of days, or weeks--I don’t know. But I know what you mean: the whole damn world comes apart in a day, and you can’t ever put it back together the way it was. A doctor’s not supposed to say that, but it’s the truth.”

There’s a long moment of gloomy, coffee-sipping silence, during which McCoy sees Jim’s still face in the depths of his mug.

“Aren’t we a pair?” he says after a while, trying to rouse himself to gallantry. “Looks like you picked the wrong person to cheer you up.”

“I’m not sure I was looking to be cheered up.” She’s looking down, but she’s got those bright, undimmable eyes, so like Jim’s. “I surprised myself, wanting company. For the last week, all I wanted was to be left alone; the press were camped outside my flat, until Security ran them off. I can’t imagine what my neighbors thought. It’s just around the corner, you know. My flat."

“I didn’t.” He doesn’t know anything about her, except what he’s read in the press--the usual Starfleet resume of glittering accomplishments, plus a famous father.

“Mmm. It’s a bit small, but it’s got a balcony and--” She stops, and McCoy’s conscious of a reset, her head tilting with that birdlike quickness as she makes a decision. “Would you like to come up to my flat?”

She leaves the invitation undecorated by offers of more coffee or views of the bay. McCoy briefly considers and then discards the idea that he’d be taking advantage; she’s not out of her mind or desperate, just as frustrated, as he is, with the lack of anything to do to make any of it better.

“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”

Carol’s flat may be big or small; McCoy doesn’t see much of it. They’re taking each others’ clothes off before the door closes. There’s a speed born of nervous energy, but without real passion to drive them forward, there are also awkward pauses: a disjointed moment when McCoy hesitates before cupping the smooth curves of Carol’s behind, another before she slides a small, deft hand into his underwear to rearrange him before tugging it off.

Her bed is pale yellow and her skin is so fine-grained and perfect it almost seems inhuman, but she’s all flesh and blood in the way she kisses him, over his collarbone and across his pecs, down his tender sides and the hollow of his pelvis, anywhere but on the mouth. He lets her stay on top, lets her take whatever she wants, because whatever the motives, it’s blissfully distracting and it’s real, the first thing in more than a week that’s felt that way. He takes the distraction and defers the rest--her beauty, her crappy situation, the fact that her father is the greatest monster in Starfleet history. She slides down onto him with a look of purest relief that melts into blissful blankness. The sun breaks out from behind the clouds and floods the apartment with light and it’s all McCoy sees behind his closed eyes. After what seems like a long time, Carol tightens on him and cries out, and he comes himself with as much discretion as he can, not wanting to break the fragile peace.

She withdraws and reclines on his chest, face flushed and hair tangled, looking like a living thing at last. She pats his sweat-damp belly and says, “Thank you, Len. You’re a good friend.”

Lulled with endorphins and sunshine and skin, he’s drifting off to his first comfortable sleep in days when his commlink chirps. His heart skips a beat-- _Jim_ \--and he lunges for it.

“What is it?” Carol asks drowsily.

“The Commission of Inquiry. They’ve called me to testify tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry,” she mutters into his chest. “It’s just a bunch of sour old admirals. What could they do to you, anyway, after what you’ve been through?”

McCoy runs a strand of Carol’s hair between his fingers and lets her fall asleep on his chest, wondering if it’s better or worse to have nothing left to lose.

 

**Day 10**

 

McCoy reports as instructed at 1100. The Starfleet Commission of Etcetera has set up shop in the amphitheater of Dyson Hall, whose multi-story windows admit a view of heavy grey clouds with occasional and appropriately dramatic flashes of lightning. The cavernous room is mostly empty; there’s no peanut gallery, just a handful of ‘Fleet underlings ferrying beverages and a few burly Security types, eyes darting around the room.

The Commission is made up mostly of retired admirals, none of whom McCoy knows by sight but a few of whom he knows by reputation. The Chair is Telav zh’Esh, an Andorian and something of a legend, at least among a few of McCoy’s former instructors who served under zhe on the _USS Uruk_. McCoy, waiting his turn in the front row and feeling every itchy centimeter of his dress uniform, is reminded of the old saying: _There’s no such thing as a free lunch, an honest politician, or an Andorian without an opinion_. McCoy doubts there’ll be much of his career or his professional reputation left by the time zh’Esh is done, but at least zhe’s likely to put him out of his misery quickly.

When the Commissioners file back in from their morning break (McCoy hadn’t been allowed to listen to the earlier testimony), a young lieutenant with a lawyerly air waves McCoy over to the witness’s conference table, which bears a padd and a pitcher of water..

“Dr. McCoy,” zh’Esh begins, “you have been summoned here to provide us with information concerning certain events aboard the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ during its recent unauthorized mission to Qo’noS. This is not a military court and you are not being charged--yet--with any violation of Starfleet orders, but as an officer you are expected to fully cooperate. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, uh, zha.”

“ _Sir_ will suffice,” zhe says with a tight smile, and a twitch of the antenna; McCoy can’t remember whether that’s a good sign or a bad. “Now, Doctor, we wish to focus on the two interactions you had with Khan Noonien Singh. During the first, you drew blood from him, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. Khan appeared to be human, but he was extremely strong, and very resistant to injury. We needed to find out what he was in order to handle him.” This prompts a lot of frenzied note-taking, even though McCoy is sure he’s being recorded down to the molecular level.

“And what did you find?”

“That he had the normal human blood components, but a number of novel ones, as well. He had an abundance of granulocytes that resembled neutrophils.”

No one bothers to ask him what these white blood cells are or do; zh’Esh merely nods, as if ticking off a correct answer. “And did you ask him about this?”

McCoy frowns at the odd question. “No, there wasn’t time. I didn’t have much interest in talking to him, anyway; he was--”

A tall, white-haired woman whose name card reads Adm. Paredes leans forward in her chair. “He was _what_ , Doctor?”

McCoy fishes for a word, aware that he’s sweating under the bright lights. “I don’t rightly know how to say it. Disturbing, maybe? Something about his voice, and the way he could twist words. He knew how to say what you wanted to hear.”

“And what things did he tell _you_ , Dr. McCoy?” McCoy doesn’t recognized the burly, bearded human with the sharp-edged voice and no name card. “Did he tell you his blood could raise the dead?”

A ripple of consternation goes through the panel, and McCoy uses it to get a grip on himself. _Here it comes,_ he thinks, but zh’Esh raises zhe’s hand for silence.

“Please,” zhe says, “this is a panel of inquiry. We are not here to level accusations, no matter how dramatic they may sound. Now, Doctor, let us proceed. You analyzed Khan’s blood and recorded your findings. Did you do pursue your inquiry any further?”

“Yes, sir. I had a tribble. That is, I still have it, but I, uh, realize that tribbles are banned in San Francisco since the recent unpleasantness--I mean, the unpleasantness with the tribbles. A friend is keeping it for me. Off planet.” As lies go, it’s not a very big one, although the friend is Scotty, and “off planet” is an improvised walk-in refrigerator at his house in Half Moon Bay.

“Very well, Dr. McCoy, you have a tribble.” McCoy can see Admiral Paredes smirking. “What of it?”

“The tribble was dead, sir. Mostly dead, anyway; it expired from old age. I kept it in cryostasis just in case--” McCoy knows it will sound ridiculous to say that he was essentially keeping it for sentimental reasons. “They’re interesting subjects. They have extremely high metabolisms and an extraordinarily high rate of cell death and regeneration. I was curious to see what effect the novel blood factor would have on the tribble. So I made a serum from Khan’s blood, and injected it.”

“And what happened then?” The panel seems riveted; McCoy’s never had the attention of so many admirals at once.

“Things got a bit busy, sir. As I’m sure you know.”

“Very well. Let’s move on from the tribble to more pressing matters.” Admiral zh’Esh leads him through the whole sorry affair--from Qo'noS to Marcus to the moment he’d give a lot to not live over. He’s spent the past week actively trying not to think about it, but it’s haunted his dreams, appeared without warning in windows and on blank walls: Jim’s face, so young and naked with honest fear.

_I’m sorry._

He blinks away the stinging water in his eyes, determined not to lose it in front of the admirals, trying to concentrate on what zh’Esh is saying, when the bearded human interrupts again.

“--And so your shipmates brought Khan back, not to the brig at Starfleet, but to the _Enterprise,_ so you could use Khan’s blood on Captain Kirk. Did it occur to you for one minute that doing so risked letting Khan loose again? And what about the other Augment that you removed from his cryotube?” The man’s voice rises, and he’s leaning so far forward in his chair that McCoy thinks he might make a lunge for him.

“I know it was irregular, Admiral, but under the circumstances--”

“Half of San Francisco on fire, a genocidal madman on the loose, Starfleet officers committing acts of sabotage and mutiny?” McCoy glances at zh’Esh, hoping for help, but zhe’s conferring with a colleague and seems inclined to let the belligerent questioning continue. “And you expect us to believe this revival of Kirk was a happy coincidence as a result of your medical curiosity?”

McCoy, unable to give anything more than the truth, holds his hands out in appeal. “I don’t know what else it would be, sir.”

“Admiral Marcus committed acts of highest treason because Khan gave him what he wanted--weapons capable of starting, if not winning, a war with the Klingons. What did he offer you, Doctor?” The man’s voice is arch, insinuating; it feels like a performance, but McCoy will be damned if he knows for whose benefit. “Was it the secret to a powerful drug whose discovery would make you one of the greatest doctors of our age? Because I find the chain of events as you describe them difficult to believe. Who conducts medical experiments in the middle of a battle? Who thinks of trying to revive a clearly dead man?”

“I do! I did it.” McCoy’s voice sounds as angry as he feels, but he doesn’t care. At least zh’Esh’s antennae have swivelled back to attention. “Because I’m a doctor, and that’s what doctors do.”

It’s a half truth at best; he wouldn’t have done it for anyone, he knows that--not put other people’s lives in danger, not tried something that defied medical knowledge and medical ethics to boot.

“What a nice platitude,” the bearded man says, rising from his chair and putting his hands behind his back like a prosecutor. “But you’re going to have to do better than that. Khan is a superhuman genius, and you’re--what? A medical officer with a year in space and a predilection for experimenting on tribbles?

He’d promised himself to be honest because that was the only possible way out of the concentric rings of lies building up around this whole mess, and because it’s how he was raised to be. He was willing to let Starfleet think he was a quack and an easily manipulated idiot and whatever else they wanted, because it seemed like a small price to pay. But it turns out now that that’s not the truth that the bearded man wants.

A long moment passes, with the eyes of the commissioners nowhere else but on him. He wracks his brain, trying to think what will make sense to them, what will be enough to explain what it felt like to have Jim’s lifeless body under his hands, its heat returning to the universe, the molecules and atoms that made up Jim Kirk shortly to follow, that awful entropy taking him where McCoy couldn’t follow.

“I’m Jim Kirk’s friend,” he says finally, in desperation. “I did it because it was Jim, and because he didn’t deserve to die that way. I did it for Jim because I would have done anything, anything for Jim Kirk not to be dead.”

The bearded man’s eyes narrow, but he sits back down. Admiral zh’Esh’s antennae turn an unreadable shade of blue.

“Thank you, Doctor,” zhe says quietly. “I think that will be enough for today.”

McCoy’s shoulders slump with relief. It may not be the whole truth, but it’s as much of it as he can put into words, and as much as the admirals deserve to hear.

 

**Day 11**

 

McCoy half-sleeps through another restless night--he’s turned into as much of a pig as Jim but a lot less fun, leaving a trail of takeout containers and tangled sheets behind him--but he manages to stumble into the Neurology ward at 0800 looking reasonably well groomed and not like a man on the verge of losing his medical license or his sanity.

Spock is already there, an aggravation, but something he’s getting used to, like the cheap holoprint of the Crab Nebula above Jim’s bed. Spock is irritating, McCoy is irritated, Jim is as silent as ever, and it seems like the whole cycle may go on forever. The only prospect more frightening is the alternative.

“Dr. McCoy,” Spock says after giving him a few moments to make his rounds of the monitors. “I trust your testimony before the Commission went well?”

“Oh, sure, just dandy--thanks for reminding me. There’s a slim possibility I won’t be cashiered and have my medical license revoked, so I guess you could say it went alright.”

Spock draws his eyebrows together, the closest he can come to a frown. “I thought Nyota had--” he pauses. “Doctor,” he begins again, a little louder. “The forecast predicts that the pleasant weather we’ve been enjoying for the past two days will be ending this afternoon. Perhaps you would care to accompany me for a walk? I suggest Muir Woods.”

“You want me to go for a walk in the forest with you? Now I’ve heard--” But he catches Spock’s eye, looking pointedly at the bank of monitoring equipment. “Oh.” He scratches his arm and glances at Jim. “Well, I suppose a walk would be nice.”

After a half hour and an airbus across the Golden Gate Bridge, they’re walking down a broad dirt path between the giant redwoods, morning light filtering between feathery branches. It’s cool and lush, and the oxygen clears some of the fog from McCoy’s brain. It’s pleasant, even if Spock isn’t the most agreeable of companions. He keeps a steady, almost metronomic pace, barely looking around, while McCoy’s gaze wanders to the joggers and day hikers and the giant trees themselves, most of them older than human spaceflight. Spock finally pauses when they reach a cul de sac and gestures toward a bench.

“For pete’s sake,” McCoys says. “I get the need for secrecy, but Uhura only took me across the bay. And she bought me lunch.”

Spock gives him an unreadable look. “Nyota is an astute observer of Starfleet politics, but she isn’t privy to the same information I am. I am the acting captain of the _Enterprise_.”

“That’s news to me. That poor ship’s barely got two tritanium sticks to rub together. Anyhow, she’s already got a captain.”

“ _Acting_ captain,” Spock repeats. He waits, stubbornly, for McCoy to sit down before he continues. “We expect to hear any day now whether the _Enterprise_ will be rebuilt or decommissioned. If it is the latter, I will lose that title, but in the meantime--”

“You get invited to all the fancy parties. I get it. So tell me what gossip you’ve been hearing. Just don’t talk too loud, that squirrel over there might be a spy.”

Spock’s look of annoyance makes McCoy feel like he’s accomplished something this morning after all.

“Did the panel for your testimony for the committee include anyone who wasn’t identified? A human male, perhaps?”

“Who, that angry son-of-a-bitch with the beard? Yes. Who the hell is he?”

The squirrel is advancing on Spock, apparently looking for a handout. McCoy is tempted to tell it not to waste its time.

“He introduces himself as Elliot Targ, a private security consultant, but I believe him to be the new head of Section 31.”

“I thought that nonsense got blown up in London.”

“The London facility was one of many. It’s unlikely that Section 31 was incapacitated, and I am afraid to say, even less likely that Starfleet will shut it down. The effort to root out more corruption and secret programs is--regrettably, to my mind--proving to be a justification to keep Section 31 in operation.”

“A fancy way of saying that Starfleet is eating its own.” McCoy feels tired again, and annoyed to be out of range of coffee. “Well, it can chew me up and spit me out for all I care. I just wish Jim were here--not _here_ here, but you know what I mean. He’d cut through this bull like a hot knife through warm butter.”

“That is exactly why it may be better that he is not here.”

“ _Better?_ ” McCoy jumps to his feet, causing the squirrel to skitter away. “If you’re saying Jim is better off unconscious, then I have a mind to--”

“That is not what I’m suggesting,” Spock says, unmoving. “Only that an unconscious hero cannot incriminate himself, while a conscious one can. That is why Nyota advised you to allow the Commission to think that the serum was Khan’s idea. I suspect, however, that you did not follow her advice.”

“I didn’t,” McCoy says flatly. “I’m not subtle enough to play this game, I don’t hold with lying, and I don’t give a good goddamn what happens to me at this point.”

“If Jim recovers and the _Enterprise_ is repaired and sent on a five-year mission, you may.”

The thought of that knocks McCoy speechless, and he drops back down onto the hard wooden bench. In his mind’s eye he sees the _Enterprise_ and Jim, warping away without him.

“She could have told me that. I just thought she wanted to spare me a court martial.”

Spock’s jaw tightens. “We did not appreciate how much your emotional state would affect your reasoning.”

“Oh, _we_ didn’t, did we? And you weren’t emotionally affected at all. Tell me.” He jabs a finger at Spock. “Tell me you and Uhura wouldn’t have moved heaven and earth to save Jim’s life.”

“I can tell you no such thing, but fortunately, we did not have to. Your discovery ensured that.”

A gust of wind sets the delicate branches of the great trees to swaying. It seems that these days, a storm is never far away. For a long moment they’re both silent, listening to the wind, and then Spock says, “You did tell the Commission it was your discovery, did you not?”

“‘Discovery’ is a mite strong. A happy accident, I suppose, although God knows it’s going to put the fox in the chicken coop when the word gets out, regardless of what happens to me.”

Spock nods slowly. “I believe that in the end this may be for the best. I have been reviewing the archives on the Eugenics Wars, and I have been unable to find a mention of any extraordinary regenerative powers. If Augments had been functionally immortal, the war might have been even more horrific.”

“What are you saying, then? Khan was telling the truth about being the only one?”

“I’m saying that I believe Khan’s regenerative power might have been something he himself developed.”

“Another project of Marcus’s? My God--a heavily armed Starfleet with soldiers able to instantly recover from the most severe injuries--you don’t think he meant to bring back augmentation?” Spock’s right, and maybe his father is, too; without Jim’s nimble brain to help him see through the infinite layers of politics, he might be better off in Georgia, tending to scraped knees and clogged arteries.

“That, I do not know,” Spock says, “though I doubt that would have been beyond the bounds of possibility. However, it is my belief that Khan developed this capability on his own, perhaps to protect his own life, or perhaps to use as bargaining chip. The human fear of death is overwhelming and endemic; what wouldn’t someone--someone highly placed in Starfleet--do to save a loved one?”

“I know what I _wouldn’t_ do; I wouldn’t kill an innocent person, and I wouldn’t bring back some kind of plague to humankind. If I thought that’s what this cure did, I’d let Jim die.” That much, McCoy feels confident about.

“You have that power, don’t you?” Spock asks quietly. “Legal power to discontinue Jim’s life support?”

“I do,” McCoy says, his mouth dry, “but Jim isn’t on life support, and that’s only in case of severe brain damage. At this point we don’t know what state he’d be in, if he weren’t in the coma.” He rubs a hand over his face. The queasy uncertainty-- _should I have, or shouldn’t I?_ isn’t going to go away, not until Jim’s in-between state collapses in one direction or the other.

Spock says nothing, but doesn’t move off the bench, either. The next gust of wind makes McCoy regret rushing out of the hospital in only a thin cotton shirt.

“There is something I wish you to know, Doctor.” Spock says finally. “Jim did not want to die. He was prepared to make the sacrifice for the crew of the _Enterprise_ , for all of us--but he suffered from the same fear as any human approaching death. As any mortal being.”

McCoy resists the urge to leap up and bolt down the forest path. “I don’t want to hear what he was afraid of.”

“I could not touch his mind, so I have nothing more specific to offer,” Spock continues, relentless. “But if he was like Admiral Pike, his primary emotion was regret. At his perceived failure, at having to leave the rest of us behind to deal with the consequences.”

“Just-- _don’t_. That’s too damned personal.”

“It is human. You of all people should appreciate that.” He turns to face McCoy. “Jim is my friend. My wish for him is to have as few regrets as possible when that time comes again, as it must.”

“That’s what I want for him, too. Of course.” McCoy tightens his jaw against the emotions he’d rather Spock not see.

“And you have taken positive steps to ensure that. I admit I am still learning about the ability that humans call intuition, which I believe to be a form of innate logic. Jim uses it most effectively. You did also, in your commission testimony. You provided Starfleet with a way to leverage your discovery largely untainted by its association with Khan. In doing so you may have saved your own career, so that you will continue to be able to serve on board the _Enterprise_. With Jim.”

“You’re sure he’s going to recover, then?”

Spock does the Vulcan version of a shrug, with his eyebrows. “If he does not, there is no further planning required. But if he does--I see no reason we should not be prepared.”

McCoy sits in silence for a long moment, heart full but unwilling to let his eyes tear up in front of Spock. “You’re a good friend,” he says. “To Jim, I mean.”

The corners of Spock’s mouth turn up ever so slightly. “I understand your meaning very well.”

After a few more awkward moments, Spock announces that he wants to go meditate and vanishes down a distant path like a woodland sprite in a ‘Fleet tunic, leaving McCoy alone with his thoughts.

It’s easy, now, to convince himself that he was reconciled to Jim’s passing, whether to death or some twilight way-state. But Spock has tempted him with the possibility of a future to eclipse any past, and McCoy knows there’s no way going back. If Spock had gotten a glimpse into Jim’s thoughts McCoy might have asked--he’s that desperately eager--if Jim felt the same way too. But now the only way to know will be to ask Jim himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Day 12**

 

McCoy wakes at 0600 as usual to heavy gray skies and a squall beating rain against the windows. It matches his mood a little closely. He pulls Jim’s sheets over his head and, for once, is able to get back to sleep, and when he opens his eyes again it’s close to noon. He feels rested, sated with sleep, but angry at himself for the break in his routine, which among other things is going to be hell on his already confused Circadian rhythm.

The storms have cleared out, but the sky still threatens rain. McCoy decides to chance the walk anyway, stopping at the bakery on Geary for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He knows the routine can’t last forever: sooner or later he’ll have to go back to work, someone will reclaim Jim’s apartment. For now, though, it’s keeping him connected to Jim. The routine is all he has.

Inside Jim’s room there’s no change of time or weather; the doctors and nurses barely glance up when McCoy walks by. He’s part of the furniture, like the white visitor’s chair and the orange plant, which has grown long tendrils and a weird blue flower since Sulu brought it. McCoy has achieved a fragile detente with Boyce, Jim’s attending, although the guy’s cranky as hell and his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.

In the early afternoon, Scotty appears, in full uniform and carrying an official ‘Fleet padd.

“Leonard!” he says warmly, shaking McCoy’s hand. “I’m very glad you’re here. I come bearing news.” He hoists the padd.

“Good news, I hope?”

“I hope so, too, but I haven’t a clue.” He approaches Jim’s bed respectfully, as if Jim were conscious and sitting behind the desk in his ready room. “It’s the assessment of the _Enterprise_ from Engineering. Whether they’re going to repair the old girl or sell her off for scrap.”

There’s a hitch in Scotty’s voice that McCoy doesn’t find amusing at all. While he doesn’t share Jim and Scotty’s boundless infatuation with the _Enterprise_ he appreciates what it symbolizes: a promise to always come home. He’d see the great ship sent to the junkyard with great regret, and he knows that it would break Jim’s heart.

“Let’s hope for the best, then,” McCoy says, patting Scotty’s shoulder.

“Always. Well, here goes nothing.” McCoy sees a flash of the Starfleet emblem over Scotty’s shoulder. There’s a long pause in which McCoy waits expectantly until he realizes Scotty’s eyes are closed.

“Well, aren’t you going to read it?”

“It feels _wrong_ ,” he says, eyes still squeezed tight. “It should go to the Captain first.”

“That’s a nice sentiment, but he’s not going to be able to read it any time soon.” McCoy feels the irritation of suspense, aware that he’s being more than a bit superstitious in light of what he knows about captains and their ships.

“Here, this’ll do.” Scotty slides the padd into one of Jim’s lax hands. McCoy flinches inwardly; he hasn’t touched Jim’s bare skin since he injected Khan’s blood into him, but Scotty does it as easily and naturally as if they were all sitting around the conference table. “All right then, on the count of three? One, two-- Ach, I can’t bear to look. What if they rebuild her, and it’s as one of those Dreadnought monsters? The advanced warp capabilities are fantastic, and there are aspects of the hull design I’d keep, but a ship that size’ll have stability--”

“ _Scotty_.” McCoy can practically feel himself developing a tic. “If Jim were awake, he’d tell you to _move it along_.”

“Right you are. Here we are, then.” A tap, a scroll, and Scotty leans over Jim as if he’s trying to read over his shoulder. Scotty’s expression turns from frowning concentration to open-mouthed wonder, and tears form in his eyes. “Oh,” he sighs. “Oh, my. They’re going to save her. A complete retrofit, _with_ advanced warp and a lot of other goodies besides. She’ll still be our _Enterprise_ , only better. Do you hear that, Jim?” he whispers. “We’re getting our girl back, and she’ll have everything she deserves. All she needs now is her captain.”

When Scotty stands up and straightens his uniform, McCoy pulls him into a hug without a second thought.

 

**Day 13**

McCoy’s taken to dozing off in the white visitor’s chair, though it hasn’t gotten a bit more comfortable in the last two weeks. He figures after so many restless nights his body’s finally catching up, so when Boyce shakes his shoulder--none too gently--he wakes up with a snort and a startle reaction more appropriate to the bridge of a starship than a hospital room.

“Easy, easy,” Boyce says, taking a step back, and then, after a closer look and his bleary face, “Hard to believe you’re the one the nurses are always going on about.”

“I’m at my best after lunch.” McCoy runs a hand through his hair, which is getting long and increasingly unfamiliar with a comb.

“I’m at my best after a martini, but we all have to carry on as best as we can. So, Doctor--I have, as they say, good news and--I don’t know what the rest of the news is. Could be good, could be bad.”

“Don’t be cute about it, whatever it is.” McCoy is now sitting ramrod straight in the chair. “Just tell me.”

That at least wipes the sardonic smile off Boyce’s face. “Well, alright then. First of all, congratulations--you’ve been placed on active duty, assigned to the Neurology Department at Starfleet Medical, which as I’m sure you know by now is right here.”

For that, McCoy could almost hug him. “Am I assigned to Jim’s case?”

“If you want to be. See, that brings me to the second thing--Dr. T'Kan proposed a plan to wake him up as early as tomorrow, if his neurograms stay consistent. She thinks that we gain nothing by waiting longer, except further deterioration in his physical condition from disuse.”

After so long without news or change in his life, it’s more than McCoy can handle. The possibility of Jim awake--talking, smiling, but also maybe suffering the mental or physical effects of the radiation poisoning--fills him with almost unbearable eagerness and a feeling that things are moving too fast.

“That sounds reasonable,” he says, trying to sound like the Starfleet doctor that he is again. “So what’s the possibly bad news?”

Boyce hooks a stool with his foot, the one the nurses perch on when they’re reading Jim’s charts and pulls it to within knee-bumping distance. “I know you know the risks by now. Hell, you’ve probably committed them to memory, see them hovering in the dark at night. Oh, don’t give me that look--I may be a doctor, but I’ve had loved ones as patients, too. So suppose we bring him out of the coma, based on the best information we have today, which is that we’ll gain nothing by waiting. But then let’s say something bad happens. Maybe he’s never completely himself again, or he relapses, or he gets sick a year or two or more from now, and you wonder if we should have waited. We don’t know all the effects of this magic serum of yours, and we may not in the near future, but--” the smile has crept back onto Boyce’s face--”you try keeping the researchers away once they realize we could have a cure for everything from Iverson’s disease to pyrrhoneuritis. You’re a modern Prometheus, Dr. McCoy.”

“You know what’s Greek to me?” McCoy growls. “Your point.”

“Simple enough. If we wake him up tomorrow, we’re acting on the best information we have today. But science marches forward. Or warps forward, when you’re around.”

“Are you telling me it’s _my_ choice?” McCoy feels like he’s being set up, but he’s not sure for what.

Boyce is all seriousness now, hands clasped in front of him, a lock of silver hair falling in his eyes as he leans forward to speak to McCoy with paternal confidence. He does indeed remind McCoy of David a little, though he trusts that if David were here, he wouldn’t be trying to confuse McCoy’s tired mind with impossible ethical dilemmas.

“With Kirk’s medical power of attorney, you could decide to take him out of here, find somewhere with round-the-clock care and a biobed they don’t mind having used indefinitely. But as his doctor--”

“--I’d be actively participating in the decision. Yes, I know. Doesn’t seem to me that it makes a hell of a lot of difference.”

“You might feel differently, if it turns out to be the wrong one, and you have to live the rest of your life with it.”

“I’ll take my chances,” McCoy says, with a conviction he doesn’t feel.

Boyce shrugs, as if to say he’s done his best. “I’m glad you’re confident. Right, Doctor, I’ll see you at 1000 tomorrow, if not before.” He nods toward McCoy’s cotton sweater and thrice-unwashed jeans. “And I’ll expect you to be all suited up. Good luck finding a senior officer uniform that fits; that new white job is a dilly.”

Boyce leaves McCoy where he found him, slouched in the chair two feet from Jim’s bed, but it’s too far away. He moves closer, close enough to see the white, unvarying hospital light glinting off Jim’s dark lashes. He tries to tease out the threads of his desires--to have the ordeal end; to live on with hope, even if false; and most of all, to be able to look into Jim’s eyes again, just to _talk_ with him, be annoyed by him, touch him--

He reaches out a trembling hand to take Jim’s in his. Contrary to his fears, Jim’s flesh is soft and warm, the hand well-tended, nails kept short. He’s like a perfect monument to himself, all the signifiers of Jim with none of his actual presence. It’s the presence McCoy aches for, something he’d never call a soul but is more than a collection of thoughts and memories. Jim is a trajectory, a place that McCoy wants to go, without whom his life is hollow, earthbound, all the conventional things that he once loved, that his father still loves. There’s only space in McCoy’s heart now to love one thing.

“Just a little more time,” McCoy whispers. “A few minutes, an hour--that’s all I want. You can make fun of my hair, call me an idiot, I don’t care.” He’s trying so hard not to cry, but the tears come all the same because he’s weak, and he knows what he’s said is a lie. From here on out, he won’t be satisfied with less than everything.

 

**Day 14**

For the thing that will determine the course of McCoy’s life, Jim’s revival is shockingly easy: a hypo full of dedrazine, on top of discontinuing the albiturates. They don’t even bother to do it in an operating theater, because Jim isn’t on life support. So there’s just Jim, surrounded by a ring of doctors that includes McCoy, now in medical whites--some winged contraption, of Marcus’s design no doubt--acting as if he’s one of the crowd.

The neurogram is the first thing to show signs of change, a fluttering butterfly of a line as Jim’s brain becomes more active. Then Jim’s hand twitches, and McCoy nearly jumps out of his skin.

_Come back. Come back to me, you beautiful son of a bitch_ , he thinks, eyes on Jim’s neural profile, heart in his throat.

“Vitals are looking good,” Boyce says. He aims a small, pulsing light at Jim’s eyes. “No problem syncing alpha waves. I think we’re ready for another 20 cc’s.” The nurse hands Boyce the hypo, and he pivots and hands it to McCoy. “Care to do the honors?”

McCoy has to strain to keep the look of horrified surprise off his face, while inwardly cursing Boyce and his deceptively avuncular manner. He has no choice but to take the hypo and then stand there, staring at it, until T'Kan must be wondering if his two weeks off from Medical have left him unable to perform the most basic tasks.

Boyce hovers at his elbow, watching, and then finally gives him a small but actual shove with an elbow to his ribs.

“All in, Doctor,” he says.

McCoy watches his own hands lift the hypo and guide it to Jim’s arm. There’s a hiss as the medicine goes in, this injection a perfect mirror of the first, except that the _Enterprise_ isn’t coming apart around him, and he has more than a faint hope that this one will work.

There’s a long pause during which nothing happens, not even another twitch of Jim’s hand, and McCoy is on the verge of believing that nothing will. Into the void comes a sudden memory of Jim on the deck of the _Enterprise_ taking the last minute of his life to _apologize_ to his crew.

_I’m sorry_.

It was the worst thing McCoy had ever seen, worse even that his death: Jim, defeated, the hero’s story brought to a violent end, the bad guy winning, everything that was bright and good about Jim and Starfleet on the verge of being wiped out in an instant of malicious force. And then Jim had fought back the way Jim always did, and he _won_ , even at the cost of his life. Saving the rest of them was the only victory that counted, and it seemed Khan was right--it _was_ a good death as far as Jim was concerned, and maybe Jim would have been content to leave the story there, despite his fears.

_“She’s giving me up,” David said. They were sitting on the front porch enjoying a summer twilight, cool rising from the valley and lifting away the heavy heat of day. “She said she knew I wasn’t happy, which is funny, because I thought I was.”_

_“That’s bull,” McCoy snorts, bitterness like a sharp-edged rock in his chest. “_ She _’s the one who wants to get away from here. There’s nothing noble about it.”_

_“Oh, no, I think she’s probably right.” David crosses his long legs and takes a sip of tea; even now, he won’t drink bourbon until after 8 PM. “It’s love that’s selfish. Indifference can be pretty clear-eyed.”_

Back in the present, McCoy thinks, _Dad, you were right._ I’m _the one I’m doing this for_.

As if on command, Jim’s lashes flutter open. His eyes are the brightest thing in the room.

The doctors spring into action like they’re performing a well-rehearsed dance, scanning Jim’s brain and irrigating his eyes and adjusting his electrolyte balance. McCoy just stands there, hands limp at his sides.

Jim’s blinks against the harsh light, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. The first thing he says is “ _Shit_ ,” followed by “ _Bones_.” His voice is raspy, but distinct.

“Here,” McCoy says, voice hardly stronger. “I’m here, Jim. Right here.” He drops a shaking hand to Jim’s shoulder, gripping it lightly. His heart is full to bursting, the shock and joy enough that he’s afraid he’s going to become a patient himself--Boyce’s, probably, because luck this incredible can’t possibly hold. It doesn’t matter; McCoy would trade whatever he has, whatever he will have, for this moment.

Jim’s eyes roam the room, assessing, trying to figure out the _where_ and _why_ and _how long_ on what may be scant or absence memories.

His gaze settles on McCoy, and he squints a little against the white glare, pupils contracting. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“He’s fine,” Boyce says, continuing to check the neurograms anyway.

With hope roaring in his ears, it still occurs to McCoy that Jim might mistake him for some otherworldly being. “New uniform. We’re at Starfleet Medical, and I--”

“Not yet,” Dr. T’Kan says, moving to block McCoy. “We must first ask Captain Kirk a series of questions to determine the state of his memory. Captain, do you know what year it is?”

Jim’s eyes aren’t exactly focused, but he still manages to approximate an eyeroll. “2259.”

“Do you know who the Federation president is?”

Jim squeezes his eyes tight, concentrating, and then pops them open again. “That asshole I didn’t vote for.”

T’Kan cocks an eyebrow. “And what is the last thing you remember?”

Jim shifts uncomfortably in the bed, as if trying to reacclimate to having muscle control. “Standing on the bridge of the _Enterprise_ , about to get blown up.”

McCoy tells himself that short-term memory loss is not unexpected, and a small price to pay, though he’s not sure if it’s better for Jim to remember his death or his defeat.

“I see.” T’Kan nods, noncommittal, tapping away on her padd. “Thank you, Captain. We’ll have more questions later, but now we shall attempt to make you comfortable. You have a long period of recuperation and rehabilitation ahead of you.”

“Oh, good,” Jim says as the white coats close in. “That sounds like fun.”

The team now realigns itself around a conscious (and rather cranky and demanding) Kirk, bringing him water and oral medication and some easily digestible goo, presented in the traditional form of a gelatin dessert. McCoy takes a minute to text Spock, who’s stuck in some admirals’ meeting. _He’s awake and everything seems fine_.

Mere seconds later he gets back, _Thank you. I am very pleased to hear it._ McCoy is glad that, for once, there’s an emotion Spock isn’t ashamed to admit to.

After another half-hour or so of tests and report-making, the great doctor armada is ready to move on.

“I trust you not to tire him out,” Boyce says, and then claps him a little too hard between the shoulder blades. “Good work, McCoy.” McCoy shrugs him off and doesn’t deign to reply.

“Friend of yours?” Jim asks when he’s left.

McCoy snorts. “Not hardly. Mostly a reminder of why I could never work at Medical.”

There’s a brief silence during which everything that comes to McCoy’s mind to say seems awkward at best and pushy at worst. He settles for the bland.

“Can I get you anything?”

Jim makes a little sound of derision. Everything, even his laughter, is altered with disuse--not rusty, but refurbished, like a ship on a shakedown cruise. “You mean like juice or something? No, what you already got me is plenty.”

“What?” McCoy is abruptly on his guard. “What do you mean?”

“You saved my life, right?”

“Do you remember that you--” McCoy trails off.

Abruptly, Jim’s eyes lock on McCoy’s. “That I died? Yeah. I remember everything.” He squeezes his eyes shut again, like he’s trying to clear a headache. “Lying to your doctors isn’t perjury or anything is, it? I just knew they were probably going to ask me a million questions, and I don’t feel like--” He stops and recalibrates. “Where’s Spock?”

McCoy does his best to repress a stab of jealousy. “Covering for you at some bigwig meeting. He wanted to be here. He’s been here every day.”

“And he’s okay? Everybody’s okay?” Jim tries to raise himself off the bed, but McCoy holds up a cautionary hand.

“Whoa there. He’s fine. Everybody’s fine,” McCoy says, not wanting to mention, at this point, the many thousands who are far from fine.

“Good,” Jim says with a sigh, relaxing back into the bed. “That’s good. Me included, I guess. So what did you do?”

There’s no point in hiding it; Starfleet knows and the world will likely know. Still, McCoy sighs. “Khan’s blood is capable of repairing massive cell damage. I made a serum from it and injected you with it.”

Jim’s eyes go wide and McCoy is ready for anger or suspicion or questions, but not for the smile that breaks over Jim’s face.

“Seriously? Did you have to squeeze it out of him drop by drop? Maybe through his eyeballs?” Seeing McCoy’s guilty look, he tries to wipe the smile off his face. “No, I know you wouldn’t do that, but trust me, Spock’s right about this one. Peace is great but there are times when violence is really fucking called for.” His glee turns to a frown and he and stares at his hands, which are fidgeting with the edge of the sheet.

“What I did was pretty close,” McCoy says tentatively. “He may be a war criminal, but he wasn’t a willing donor. His blood was probably his last bargaining chip.”

“I know,” Jim says, still frowning. “I heard Spock and Uhura talking about it. At least, I think I did.”

“You could _hear_?” That’s big damned news to McCoy; none of the neurograms suggested such a thing should be possible. “You didn’t feel like you were trapped in your body, did you, because--”

“No, no, don’t get all doctory. It wasn’t bad at all. It was like dreaming, except that sometimes it was whole conversations. I think some of them were real--Scotty said the _Enterprise_ is getting a new warp engine, I _hope_ that was real--but there were memories, too, my mom and Pike, and other things.” A small, private smile comes to his lips. “Good things, so I didn’t feel so lonely.”

The idea that some part of Jim had been awake inside his unmoving body, alone in the crowds of doctors and visitors, is more than McCoy can stand. Jim’s left hand is lying quiescent on the sheet. He reaches out and covers it with his own, torn between apology and confession. He should let Jim rest, or talk, or tell him about everything that’s gone on since he took his temporary leave from the world, but all that he can think is _Jim is awake, and he’s here, and I’m here._

“You weren’t alone,” McCoy says, his own voice guttural to his ears. “Even when I wasn’t here, I--Oh, God, Jim--”

He catches himself just at the edge of breaking down, because it isn’t fair to Jim to dump all this on him when he hardly knows what reality he’s been reborn into. Instead he clings to Jim’s hand, unable to meet his eyes.

McCoy’s resolve lasts as long as it takes Jim to reach up, joints cracking, and lay a hand on his arm. Jim, with his flawless instinct for danger, knows McCoy is lost, and of course he’ll come after him.

_The same way he would for Spock. The same way he would for any member of his crew._

“I tried,” McCoy says, angry tears in his eyes. “I tried to be strong, I tried to tell myself that whether you lived or died or ended up somewhere in between, that I’d deal with it, because you accepted the risk and so did I, when you put your life in my hands. I’m supposed to be your doctor and your friend and an officer on a goddamned starship, and I’m supposed to know something about life at this age, but in the end--all those people in the city who lost everything, all those Vulcans who lost their whole damn _planet_ \--I can barely tie my shoelaces without you. So yeah, Jim,” he finishes, scrubbing at his face with the sleeve of the white uniform that hides nothing, “I was worried.”

Jim draws his hand away, slowly, swallowing hard. McCoy wouldn’t blame him if he pulled the covers over his head and went back to sleep, the way his alleged best friend is carrying on. But when he dares to meet Jim’s eyes, there are tears in them, too.

“I’m really sorry,” he says. “I guess I had the easy part. Shit, if it had been you-- That thing with the torpedo was bad enough; it took about five years off my life.” He’s smiling a little, trying to take the edge off. For someone who can talk the stripes off a zebra, Jim is honest when it counts. It’s not deception that McCoy fears, it’s that he has no idea what Jim’s interior space of relationships looks like. Of the handful McCoy knows about--himself, Pike, Winona, and now Spock--they’re either friends or parent figures. He has no idea if Jim even has a blueprint for what McCoy wants. “If it helps, there were a bunch of times in the last 24 hours--or whenever, it could be the future for all I know--when I thought I was going to lose it. I saw people, my own people, die in front of me. But if it had been you--”

“Then we’re even,” McCoy interrupts, not even sure why, except that it’s second nature, a self-defense mechanism that predates even Jocelyn. He can feel himself contracting, retreating back to an easy friendship, one that fits now like an old sweater, one that McCoy thought he shrugged off decisively, at least when Jim was unconscious.

Jim is looking at him with that familiar bright incisiveness; his wits are returning like the fire-up of a warp core. But Jim is a good enough friend that he’s learned to navigate around McCoy’s insecurities. Whatever he sees, whatever he heard in his twilight sleep, he’ll be happy to drop it if that lets McCoy keep his beloved status quo. Jim won’t do what McCoy needs him to do for the very reason McCoy wishes he would, and thinking of the endless spirals of possibility away from this moment make him crazy with frustration.

He can’t live like this. Not any more.

“Jim,” he begins. His hand is still covering Jim’s, so he picks it up, presses it between his own. It’s large but fine, pale with prominent veins, capable and beautiful, and McCoy loves it the way he loves everything else about Jim, with a magnitude that acknowledges and transcends faults. “These last two weeks-- they took me off your case, so I didn’t have time to do anything but think. And I want to tell you that I’ll always be your friend, but that would be a lie. It hasn’t been true for a while.”

“Oh?” Jim looks concerned now, and a bit wary. “What do you mean? For how long?”

“Not since Anatareon.”

He watches the realization pass over Jim’s face like fast-moving clouds across the bay.

“I thought you--” he begins, and then stops, flashes a quick self-mocking smile, and starts again. “I mean, I’m not the most dependable person. Pike was right about that; I almost got everyone killed, and it was sheer fucking luck that I didn’t. The thing is, I always feel like I can _see_ everything so clearly--it’s like a landing strip with a bunch of lights along it, and all you have to do is follow it. But sometimes the lights are wrong and you head into the mountain instead, and now that I _know_ that, how am I ever going to make a decision again?” Jim rubs his forehead like there’s an itch inside. “Am I making any sense? My brain is probably still kind of broken.”

“You’re making perfect sense. You’re pretty much describing my life.”

“You weren’t indecisive about the Khan blood thing. Pulling that off in the middle of a starship battle is pretty fucking amazing.”

“But that was--that was _selfish_ ,” McCoy almost moans. “I did that because I couldn’t stand the idea of you being dead. I wanted to undo it, by any means necessary. My God, Jim, what did I do?”

Jim lifts up his other hand and wraps it around McCoy’s. “What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live. Nobody hates death more than you do, but it’s not exactly an enemy you can defeat. Except it seems like you did.”

“For _you_ ,” McCoy says desperately. “I did it for you.”

“I know,” Jim says, with the same calm smile. Only a man like Jim, McCoy thinks, could accept a gift so large.

Jim looks down at their clasped hands and brushes his fingers across McCoy’s knuckles. It’s a small freedom, but thrilling, knowing that Jim feels confident enough to take it.

“It’s going to happen again, you know, if we do this thing,” Jim says. “We’re going to be making decisions that could get the other person killed all the time. That _will_ get the other person killed, probably; I mean, I’ve only been at this for a year and I’ve already died once. Is that something you’re going to be able to stand?”

“Yes,” McCoy says without hesitation. Every path leads to the same place in the end; no one knows that better than a doctor. But out of all possible realities, this is the one he’s chosen, the one that he’ll be able to think about without regret.

“Good,” Jim says, a hint of mischief in his voice. “It’s probably just going to get worse. I’m going to go for that deep space assignment, you know. Uncharted territory.”

It should all be terrifying--the newness of it, the worlds to explore, Jim’s charismatic unpredictability victorious again. But for once McCoy isn’t scared at all.

Jim tightens his grip on McCoy’s hand, just for a second, and then closes his eyes, sinking back into the exhaustion of the newly resurrected, completely at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to be as canon-compliant as possible (although, Trek writers, you make that _damn hard_ ), but you may have noticed I left out McCoy's line when Jim wakes up. In the context of the story (and maybe in the movie as well) I couldn't see him making a simultaneous joke about Jim being dead and having acquired genocidal tendencies. So let's say that happens when Jim wakes up from his nap and McCoy is in more of a joking mood.
> 
> I also had to figure out a way to deal with the whole "Doctor cures death, news at 11" thing, so I decided that the serum is good for repairing massive cell damage caused by disease or injury, which makes it extremely useful, but not a panacea. It's also my headcanon that one of things it cures is pyrrhoneuritis, the disease that killed David McCoy in the TOS timeline, and that he's already beginning to suffer from in this story. In the original timeline, a cure was found just weeks after Leonard took his father off life support, causing him to have terrible feelings of guilt. Maybe in this timeline, Leonard is the one who finds the cure that, in TOS, was found by someone else, and he won't spend the rest of his life feeling as guilty and angsty as he does in this story ;)


End file.
